


Bones

by drainbamage954 (cats_cradle6766)



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Gen, Murder, Skeletons In The Closet, Stress Relief, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-27
Updated: 2015-12-27
Packaged: 2018-05-09 19:28:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5552402
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cats_cradle6766/pseuds/drainbamage954
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the little things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Bones

**Author's Note:**

> Written for shiritori.
> 
> Inspired by [this thing](https://twitter.com/fundamisery/status/655040875488133120/photo/1) so just... beware.

People can be so very wrong when they try to do things. It's an endless cycle, where Junmyeon sits behind his desk, glances up from his computer screen when he notices someone standing by his left elbow, and sees another one of the people he works with standing there watching him with that vague concern that Junmyeon has long since grown tired of.

The concern is ill placed, better suited perhaps for the forgotten intern in the back corner (Joseok? Juhyun? Junhyun? Junmyeon can't remember - he's not important anyway. An expendable resource). It's better suited for the millions of lives lost in the shootings that tear up countries hundreds of miles away or in the streets a few borders over by radicals.

That concern is far better aimed towards them, not him. His middle class, competent pay-check earning white collar self that pays the bills on time and still spends every night staring at his television flashing infomercials doesn't need this concern. It just takes up his time.

Time is valuable when Junmyeon knows how quickly some people run out of it. 

Pity. 

That's life.

"Another rough night?" Raphael (Junmyeon doesn't remember his real name. It was something normal, but it's more entertaining to categorize people in his head. Makes sure he never forgets them. Little sticky notes on his computer to make sure he doesn't mix up the people he's talked to and the people who can't be traced) says. 

"QVC had a killer sale," Junmyeon says with a smile, eyes flickering briefly to the venti Starbucks latte resting in Raphael's hands, steaming up with caffeine and dairy produced to endure through the day. "Is that your energizer for the morning?"

Raphael laughs, and Junmyeon's smile spreads in the plasticine cosmetic facade that suits this line of work. Stiff faces and stiffer shirts, fabric starch and metal chairs and desks and buildings crawling into the sky in mockery of men climbing higher to heaven. No one builds underground to get closer to Hell. "I can't get through the morning without it," he admits, taking a sip. "You?"

"I don't drink coffee," Junmyeon says, still smiling as he leans back and observes. "I have other ways of keeping energized when the day begins to drag."

"Probably healthier," Raphael says, laughing a little as he steps back. "I have to watch myself, or I get the shakes. You're smart."

"Thank you," Junmyeon tells him, still smiling as he takes in the slightly crooked tie, the missed patch of stubble on his chin, and the intern that just started last Tuesday dropping a pile of newly copied papers on the floor two aisles down.

Raphael wanders away with a noncommittal sound, leaving Junmyeon with the fading stick of formalities and artificial compassion as his eyes linger once more on the new blood scrambling to collect papers as superiors walk over him. The bottom of the pecking order in this Social Corporate Darwinistic tower reaching high into the sky towards the hand of the divine.

People can be very wrong, but Junmyeon doesn't really care. He knows it may not be healthy, what he does, but that doesn't mean it isn't effective.

\- 

Step one. Leave desk.

Step two across the floor, past the elevator and towards the back corner of the room by the water cooler and the trash cans.

Step three into the stairwell, limbs tight and head buzzing with thoughts that have no words, only spidering fingers twisting and digging into the tender flesh of Junmyeon's brain, pulling him apart.

Staying energized and focused at work can be so hard sometimes, and Junmyeon counts down from numbers pulled from this morning's reports as he climbs up and down the stairs. A small smile is all it takes as he passes by janitors, those unsuspecting individuals who all know him by name, have run into him so many times, before and after hours, asking why he's staying so late.

Just finishing up work, stepping up the stairs.

Just wanting to get ahead on a few things, stepping down another flight, hand on the cold railing, smiling placid and easy and calm.

Collected.

Breathe in, breathe out. Inhale, exhale.

Smile.

"Exercise is such a good idea," Donghwan says, looking in shining admiration and horribly veiled disgust on Junmyeon as he returns to his desk. "I'm just not willing to sacrifice my break."

"We all have different things we're willing to sacrifice to get what we need," Junmyeon tells him, and turns away before he can see the venom spread from eyes to blacken through veins.

It's the little things.

-

It's been years since Junmyeon had coffee. Once, it was his vice, pouring cups down his throat and shredding through his gut until his hands shook so badly the black caffeine would pour down in showers of mockery over him and his work. It's been years, but the shaking hands and the destructive migraines weren't why he quit.

It was something else, the shattering of too many mugs, the splintering of the glass of a french press hurled against a wall as nothing happened, and it was a scream silenced later that had stopped it.

Alternatives were sought, and black dark bitter liquid was replaced with clear, cool, and pure.

A class of ice water rests just at Junmyeon's hand half way through the morning meeting and he smiles, knowing in exactly twenty three minutes it will be taken in a shot down his throat to jolt his body into life.

Another night of infomercials, exploring the documentaries on the informational networks, watching reruns of men hunting for gold in Alaska and illegally brewing moonshine in tin cans out of the back of their trucks. Another night of Junmyeon feeling like he wasn't here, the soft clacks of the skeletons in his closet echoing to him as he lay on the couch and waited for nothing to consume it.

It didn't.

So he sits, listening to professional development waffle spout from Ken dolls in polka dot ties in front of the top grade projecting equipment and waits for the moment to pour ice into his body.

The coffee carraf circulates, and Junmyeon passes with a small wave, smiling as his fingers slip through the condensation on his glass.

Across the table, Raphael looks at him with a flash in his glasses and gives him a small indiscrete thumbs up. Junmyeon smiles and nods faintly.

Healthy. 

That's what it is.

People are so fucking stupid.

Today is about positive wellbeing and wellness plans to create healthy mindsets in employees, promoted by some fucked up money mongering new program that's now infested the educational systems and made everyone drones of positivity under the concept that 'happy people are productive people'.

Bull shit on the research, but Junmyeon smiles and fills out the PERMA survey and finds out how healthy he is, mentally, physically, socially, emotionally, philosophically, emphatically, hypothetically, conceptually, realistically.

Below average on all accounts except physical health. Junmyeon smiles, turns over the calculations in his head, and submits them with above average scores for the rest to see.

What people don't know won't hurt them. It helps them continue to make their incorrect assumptions and lets him keep smiling and working at his desk as he watches and waits and takes one shot ice water sectionals to shock his system into awareness.

That's the hard thing about insomnia. It's been so long since Junmyeon knew what that darkness, that surrender felt like, he's not sure he wants it back. It's a darkness, and if it does take him over, will he ever get back out?

Twenty three minutes are up, his PERMA is a lie, and Junmyeon swigs down the ice water in one gulp, feeling it shatter through him and burning frigid down to his gut, numbing him to reality as his brain snaps into survival.

Survival of the fittest, the healthiest, the most applicable to continue on and leave those groveling on the floor over spilled paper copies to fall between the cracks in this modern mockery of hunting grounds.

-

It had been a rough week.

A rough week of Junmyeon taking too many calls, too many notes, too many projects, and the late night two in the morning infomercials were all sub par.

It's making it hard to focus at work, to keep awake and alert and alive and contributing to the atmosphere of productivity in these caffeinated starched bourgeois sheep all running over the cliff after each other.

Junmyeon needed a break.

The copier broke, and Junmyeon stood up. The supply room in the back rarely saw inhabitants, the janitors down in the basement, closer to Hell, on days like this, where the sink in the back was free to use. The lights flicker due to faulty wiring and Junmyeon's smile is easy and plastic and so easy to slip over his face as he waits for the accelerated tempo to pound through his veins.

On Junmyeon's computer are sticky notes of everyone he's talked to, everyone who knows him or would have associated with him, or caused any degree of attention. On Junmyeon's computer are records, carefully coded and organized, of everything that someone might look at and move on from. Junmyeon's computer is clean, immaculate, as innocent as a newborn's brain screaming breath in a hospital for the first minutes of it's doomed life among men.

Junmyeon's computer is clean and pure, his hands burned with dark as he stuffs a scream back down a gurgling throat and feels the pound, pound, pound in his heart, breaths ragged as red washes through him and over his fingertips. Ah, life.

Today has been a hard day, and Junmyeon needed an extra kick, a little more something than a glass of ice water to get his pulse going, to get his energy back up, to make him feel _alive_ again.

The soft thud to the floor is followed by a relieved sigh from Junmyeon's lungs, coiling up through him as his mind buzzes and calms, another face painted over in the wall of identities he has plastered to the inside of his skull. Another person who deserved a bit of pity, a bit of concern, forgotten in the corporate beehive climbing skyward as it tramples over the small and strives to be mighty.

Another rattling final breath that shakes the bones of the skeletons Junmyeon keeps in his closet, hidden away from prying eyes as he categorizes by size, age, vintage, significance and catalogues it all into a brain built for numerals and power. The soft clatter of those whispered bones resounds in the dull thuds, the heavy sounds of flesh dragging over a floor from a lifeless form and sweat beads on Junmyeon's forehead, his heart rate elevated.

There is nothing quite like this that makes him feel so _alive_.

Coffee doesn't even come close to the exhilaration of the Most Dangerous Game played on the earth.

Water, the pure substance that determines life or death, carefully, beautifully, washes away his sins down the drain following the call of gravity. Down, down, down the gurgling drain to the basement where the lowly workers of the world live closest to the underworld and away from the light.

Away from salvation, the morning, the reminder that no, Junmyeon didn't sleep. Again.

But up here, away from that darkness, Junmyeon can smile and breathe easily, feeling awake and revitalized as he walks out of the supply closet and returns to his desk. In the fluorescent lights and sunshine streaming in to blind against his dry eyes and brittle skin, Junmyeon can live in the brilliance and ignore the darkness that lingers in his mind, itching to conquer him and leave him screaming _and so darkness I became_ with the graying bones tucked into secrecy and patiently waiting for him to join them.

"Stairs again?" Raphael asks, walking by the desk, another coffee in his hand, steaming and curling smoke up to tangle in his breath. "Getting that energy flowing again?"

Junmyeon smiles, hands folded in his lap as he feels the rhythmic thrumming of _I live_ pulsing through him. "Yes," he says. _People are so fucking stupid_. "What gave it away?"

"Nothing gets past me," Raphael laughs, cocky, conceited, _human_. "You look a bit out of breath."

"Ah," says Junmyeon, settling back at his desk and carefully running the pad of his finger along the edge of a sticky note stuck to his computer screen. "You've quite the keen eye."

"What can I say, I'm a modern day Sherlock," Raphael laughs, before walking off, the clattering laughter of skeletal jaws echoing in his footsteps from the deep recesses of closets locked and the dark whispers of Junmyeon's mind, curling in dark delighted amusement at the fallacy of men.


End file.
